Company A has five computers running a Windows 9x peer-to-peer network in their office.  The next upgrade to their accounting package is a client/server system.  What should they do?

The network will need to be upgrade to a Windows 2000 server or Windows NT4.0 server platform.  This will centralize the setting of permissions as well as allow the new software to run.  The only additional hardware required would be a server.

A computer guy years ago set me up a Novell server that just died.  I have a Windows NT server that my brother in law installed last winter, but we don't really use it.  Now I have no access across the network at all.  Also, I have a new eMachine my wife just bought me and I want to add it to our network of 486's.  Help!

Pray that your Novell backups (You did back up didn't you?) can be restored in an NT environment.  If so, restore to the NT machine.  Remove the IPX/SPX protocol and proceed with the NT server.  Leave that eMachine at home.  Configure the 486's to log into the NT machine, and as a general rule, once your processor is five generations old, it has outlived its usefulness as a business machine, except in rare cases.

If your backups cannot be restored to NT, build a new machine, install Novell, restore your backups and proceed as you were.